Catholic education calls new learning outcomes’ serious threat …

Catholic education is devastating for the new learning outcomes that the Flemish government approved last Friday for the second and third grade of secondary education. According to the umbrella organization, they are a serious infringement of the freedom of education and a major threat to the quality of education. If no adjustment is made, the umbrella threatens to take legal action.

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‘Tighter attainment targets for secondary education raise the bar.’ That is how it sounded on Friday in a press release from education minister Ben Weyts (N-VA). The Flemish government had just approved the new learning outcomes for the second and third grade of secondary education, after which consultation with the education providers would follow.

One of them, the Catholic dome, is now razing those final objectives to the ground. Wednesday, October 7, the board of directors of Catholic education sent a letter to Ben Weyts, hoping to change his mind. This states that the learning outcomes, because of ‘their size and layout, seriously infringe the freedom of education, and at the same time pose a major threat to the quality of education’. Signed: Bishop Johan Bonny, chairman of the board of directors, and Lieven Boeve, director-general of Catholic education.

The current 32 hours of lessons per week would be insufficient to provide students with all the subject matter while still leaving room to support students who need more time, or to respond to the specific interests of children. There would also no longer be time to challenge students who can do more. ‘That leads to an impoverishment of education’, it says. In concrete terms, too little time could be spent on artistic training or, for example, an extra language.

Threat

Catholic education even threatens legal proceedings. ‘The board of directors therefore urges that the set of learning outcomes be thoroughly adjusted’, it sounds. ‘For example, further legal steps do not have to be considered.’

Even though the final attainment levels are in the last straight line towards implementation next school year, the umbrella organization still asks to interrupt the process and to set up an umbrella committee that ‘thoroughly moderates’ the attainment targets. That would mean that the implementation cannot take place on September 1, 2021. ‘That is why Catholic education Flanders proposes to work out a transitional arrangement together with the government and other educational providers on the basis of the existing learning outcomes’, it sounds.

Read more here about what exactly will change when the learning outcomes are introduced in the 2021-2022 school year.

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